This document summarises the changes to the Staff record that will be implemented for 2017/18. For the new fields expected valid entries have been included; please note the full technical specification will be published in October 2017.

95 responses to our consultation were received from the HE sector. We are grateful to everybody who responded. A summary of the consultation responses is available which also contains further information on the background to these changes.

Change to coverage statement

The coverage of the Staff record for 2017/18 will be updated to exclude members of staff working for a provider through an intermediary, such as a personal service company, where the provider will be liable for secondary Class 1 national insurance contributions. A decision was made not to include these members of staff in the coverage of the Staff record based on feedback to the consultation.

New Fields

A field for hourly paid marker will be introduced on the contract entity as a mandatory field. This would not be applicable for atypical contracts.

The valid entries will be:

1 – Salaried

2 – Hourly paid

3 – Other

The definition for hourly paid will be as follows:

Hourly paid staff are those staff who are paid with reference to hours worked by them, or to an estimate of hours worked, as opposed to on a pro-rata salaried part-time basis. Hourly paid staff may be employed for a fixed period of time or with an end date on their contract of employment or on an open-ended, permanent contract. For the avoidance of doubt, their hourly rate may be calculated on the basis of a pro-rata salary but if payment is made with reference to hours worked and an hourly rate (or rates), these staff should be entered as ‘hourly paid’.

A zero hour contract marker will be introduced on the contract entity as a mandatory field. This will be applicable for all staff.

The valid entries will be:

1 – On a zero hours contract

2 – Not on a zero hours contract

The following definition from Acas will be used for zero hour contracts:

A zero hours contract is generally understood to be a contract between an employer and a worker where:

the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum working hours, and

the worker is not obliged to accept any work offered

An apprenticeship marker will be introduced on the contract entity as a mandatory field applicable for all staff.

A new field to collect Sex identifier (Person.SEXID) will be introduced based on recommendations from the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) to include an 'other' option. This field records the sex of the member of staff. This will be on the person entity as a mandatory field.

A new field to collect Gender Reassignment (Person.GENREASSIGN) will be introduced on the person entity as an optional field. The proposed question for the field is 'Does your gender identity match your sex as registered at birth?'

The valid entries will be:

1 - Yes

2 - No

3 - Information refused

Removal of a Field

Legal sex (Person.SEX) will be removed and replaced by Sex Identifier (Person.SEXID) to align with the Student record.

Gender Identity (Person.GENDERID) will be removed and replaced by one new field, Gender Reassignment (Person.GENREASSIGN), based on recommendations from the Equality Challenge Unit.

New Entity - Governors

A new entity will be added to collect equality data on Governors. There will be a new field of a Governor flag on the Person entity. The following existing fields will need to be returned BIRTHDTE, DISABLE, ETHNIC, GENREASSIGN, OWNSTAFFID, HQHELD, SEXID, NATION, RELBLF, SEXORT and STAFFID. Please note that fields on the Person entity that were optional to return for all members of staff in the previous record coverage for 2016/17 will continue to be optional under the expanded record coverage, to include Governors, for 2017/18. This includes Gender reassignment (GENREASSIGN), OWNSTAFFID, Religion or belief (RELBLF) and Sexual orientation (SEXORT).
The Governor entity will also include a field for start date, expected end date and end date. This is applicable to English, Scottish and Welsh providers only.

The valid entries for the Governor flag will be:

1 – Yes

2 – No

The format for the fields on the Governor entity (start date, expected end date and end date) will be YYYY-MM-DD.

Changes relating to REF2021

We are engaging with the REF secretariat regarding data requirements for REF2021. Information currently in the public domain indicates the potential for the REF to benefit from changes to the HESA Staff record (and also, potentially the Provider Profile record). At the time of issuing this notification of changes we are not aware of any specific changes that might be suggested for the Staff record relating to REF2021. However, we are particularly mindful that for any new data where a time series might be required, late changes to the 2017/18 record could prove necessary. Our intention is currently to raise your awareness of this possibility, only. We will keep you updated on any emerging proposals in this area.

Update 22 June 2017

An initial version of this notification of changes described a new field we were adding, Gender Identity (GENIDENTIFY). The introduction of this field was recommended by the ECU (Equality Challenge Unit), although in subsequent discussions they have now recommended that we do not introduce the field. We have therefore updated this page, removing references to the Gender Identity (GENIDENTIFY) field which will no longer be collected for Staff 2017/18 (C17025).